1. Technical Field
This invention relates to systems and methods for delivering a mailpiece to a delivery address and, more particularly, to linking a telephone number to a delivery address, where the telephone number is used to indicate a delivery address.
2. Background Information
The United States Postal Service (USPS) is an independent government agency that provides mail delivery and other services to the public. The USPS is widely recognized as a safe and reliable means for sending and receiving mail. In today's conventional delivery systems, the sender of a mailpiece, for example, a parcel, places the recipient's name and address on the item to specify the delivery point, and gives it to a delivery service to deliver.
Conventional systems for identifying and processing mail utilize mechanical processing systems for sorting and directing a mailpiece. Mechanical processing systems attempt to identify the delivery address for each mailpiece and, if successful, to then process each mailpiece based on the delivery address.
The majority of conventional mechanical processing systems sort each mailpiece based on a special code, such as, a ZIP code or a bar code (i.e., a Postal Numeric Encoding Technique (“POSTNET”) code). POSTNET is a barcode system used on letter-size and flat-size mailpieces for encoding the delivery point information and nine-digit ZIP code. After the USPS receives a mailpiece, POSTNET codes that identify the delivery point and nine-digit ZIP code are placed on the mailpiece in order to streamline the sorting process as the mailpiece moves through the USPS system. Conventional mechanical processing systems may contain an OCR machine, which can read and sort a mailpiece based on the ZIP code. These mechanical processing systems may also contain a Bar Code Sorter, which can read and sort a mailpiece based on the POSTNET code.
Mail and package delivery services throughout the world typically deliver items by using explicit destination point physical addresses, such as a business or residential street address or P.O. Box within a city and state. To manage large geographic areas, ZIP codes and other regional codes are used.
To manage geographic areas, telephone companies use Area Codes. For business purposes, the telephone companies associate and publish the physical address associated with the telephone connection. The USPS delivery point corresponds to the telephone companies' connection address. Thus, USPS and telephone companies maintain address directories that are essentially address redundant.
Currently, postal systems determine delivery point determination only from traditional addresses. The use of a telephone number for delivery point determination would thus be a new and useful capability for USPS. The use of an identification code, such as a telephone number, would allow a customer who does not know the postal addresses of a friend to still send the friend physical mail. This is beneficial to those customers who find it easier to obtain and remember telephone numbers and those who have few addresses but several telephone numbers stored, for example, in a personal digital assistant.
Systems and methods consistent with the present invention link a derivative of the telephone database with the postal database of physical addresses such that the delivery point may be determined in real-time at postal automation equipment by reading the telephone number from the mail-piece. This will enable postal systems to read and apply bar codes both for traditional addresses (i.e. addressee name, street address, city state, ZIP) and ADL addresses (i.e. addressee name and telephone number).